


How It Ends

by Anonymous



Category: Actor RPF, American (US) Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Character Bleed, Declarations Of Love, Desperately Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Falling In Love, Filming Avengers: Infinity War, Fluff and Angst, How They Got Here, Love Confessions, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, so many feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 08:35:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14493039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: They’ve got it down to a science by now.(In which Chris feels too much (partially but not exclusively related to a certain scene inAvengers: Infinity War), Sebastian understands everything, and the meaning of love is inadvertently revealed between two pairs of lips.)





	How It Ends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luninosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/gifts).



> For the incomparable [luninosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity), as a necessarily-belated birthday because it hinged on a probably-true-but-perhaps-not-true plot spoiler for Infinity War, and I had to wait until I saw it to confirm, and then wanted to wait until SHE saw it to post. Happy Birthday, my lovely. I hope you enjoy <3

They’ve got it down to a science by now.

Because at first they were acquaintances, and Chris had always ached too much for the bodies he inhabited, the characters he embodied, and watching his best friend, his anchor, his savior and protector when he needed neither and both against the winters and the world: Chris had mourned that, and the dampness in his eyes in the scene in that bombed-to-hell bar? That was real.

And Sebastian Stan had taken him for a drink after, in a real bar, and they’d bothered to start getting to know one another as people, rather than colleagues.

By the next time it happens, they’re at the very least friends.

But the next time is when a mask falls off and the world returns without knowing his name, and Chris has had his share of heartbreak to pull on, just there, just then so his face does what it needs to as he plays the scene out but here’s the thing.

The heartbreak he’s pulling on isn’t just distant, behind him, called up from a memory.

Chris’ pulse is tripping as he watches Sebastian move mountains and paint masterpieces and outstrip them all with just the skill of his _eyes_ and the set of his shoulders, and Chris thinks heartbreak is a complicated thing that comes from lots of different places, for lots of different reasons.

And if they end of making out more than once before they wrap they film, if there’s a sloppy handjob or two involved before they part ways, Chris knows that he was watching a friend leave him on the banks of a river, but something more than that waving goodbye on his way to the airport, onto the next project. On to real life.

But after each scene that counted, that tugged on that complicated mess that was heartbreak and heartsore and heart-bruised and battered and hoping like an idiot in Chris’ chest: every time, Sebastian had followed him. Sometimes minutes, sometimes hours later, and gave him something else to get lost in that wasn’t a character he was feeling too deeply. That wasn’t his own goddamn dangerous head.

Or his increasingly traitorous heart.

But Chris starts to understand just how bad the character bleed has gotten by the time he’s supposed to be finding the only piece of who he _is_ in a sparse Romanian flat. His heart’s pounding hearing words and seeing the shape of that body and all that it means and Chris is beginning to put the pieces together that he hasn’t seen much of Sebastian since he arrived for filming, really, and never alone, and it’s not just Steve fucking Rogers who is trembling on the inside with feeling and needing and conflict and coming _home_ and--

Chris begins to realize, at that very moment, just how out of hand things have become.

But then Sebastian is waiting for him when they cut, and asks if he can have a word. Which Sebastian never does. So they go to Chris’ trailer and Sebastian watches Chris’ eyes for permission Chris can’t speak because his voice ran away when Sebastian’s hands slipping beneath his shirt.

They fuck for the first time after Bucky Barnes is tormented with innocuous words, and so much of Chris had to be tramped down for wanting to do something, to _stop it_ with his own hands for his own self, with nothing of Steve Rogers in his heart.

When Steve fights a friend for someone who is more, Chris admits to himself that _he_ would fight anyone, for Sebastian, and that’s…

That’s a big deal. That _means_ something.

Sebastian takes Chris to _his_ bed that night, and it’s rough and real and raw, and for all of it it’s undoubtedly the first time they make love, even if it’s only in Chris’ head that he’d ever call it that, ever name it.

Except now he’s named it. Now, he’s really fucked.

When they film Bucky going on ice Chris knows he gives a fraction of the performance he’s capable of, that Steve Rogers deserves. He knows, because every fiber of his being is concentrated first on not thinking too hard about this being the end of something before it gets to begin, not just in a script but in a life, his life.

The night after, the spend wrapped up in each other like they’ve never been before. They lie together and curl into one another and Chris feels safe under Sebastian’s body, in his arms as Chris listens to him breathe. They both know there’s just a single plane ticket between them for the morning, and that they’re not going to end up in the same place on the other side of sunrise. 

And they’re not acquaintances, or friends, or fuckbuddies. Chris doesn’t know what they are.

Sebastian’s palm is on Chris’ chest through the whole night where they don’t sleep, and Chris’ heart just pounds, pounds, _pounds_ , 

This is the end of something. 

But Chris doesn’t _want_ it to be.

Sebastian leaves for the airport with a kiss to the pulsepoint on Chris’ neck, soft and saying so many things that Chris wants to believe in, to believe he’s hearing _right_ and Chris used to lead with his heart before the world terrified him at unexpected turns and he got cautious, anxious. 

And this isn’t a movie, there is no script, and he doesn’t have to walk away and watch something stop, something grow cold and freeze over before it even has a shot in hell to bloom. And he feels sick the entire ride there, but he catches Sebastian at the gate, going home, and just asks: _Can I come with you?_

And Chris won’t ever forget the the wideness of those eyes, or just how broad and bright a smile can be, when Sebastian looks at him, and says nothing: just nods.

Yes.

___________________________

But yeah: by this point--two years or eight years or a lifetime in the making--by _this_ point, they have keys to each other’s homes, they come and go as they must with the fluidity of air and the necessity of breathing. Sebastian learns ever more clearly and keenly what it means to read Chris and to anticipate what stokes the worst feelings in him and how to head them off when possible, and ease them through when it’s not. Chris learns how to touch Sebastian in the ways that read his heart most earnestly, most _truthfully_ and take him apart, make him come wholly undone where Sebastian refines his touch to place Chris pieces in the right order and stitch him back together whenever he comes undone. They grow together, they meld together, and Chris has never felt this solid, this certain, this _real_ somehow, like he’s whole in some iteration of the word he’d never thought existed, until it settled here inside his bones.

Chris doesn’t just know how Sebastian likes his coffee. He knows how to make it himself.

Sebastian doesn’t just know that Chris needs quiet and softness and pizza and beer after a bad day. He knows that the _type_ of bad day matches _particular_ choices for both the pizza and the beer, and he provides without fail.

In short, they just goddamn _fit_.

So needless to say, by this point, they have it down to a science, refined to an art.

And Chris doesn’t see Sebastian disappear from the face of the fucking earth, that’s all post-production, obviously. And thank god for that, because Chris wouldn’t have been able to stand it, wouldn’t have been able to keep the character and the man separate in his heart and he would have fallen apart, and there would have been no way to stop it.

But he _does_ have to hear the emotion in Seb’s voice around a name that’s become closer to Chris than it objectively has any right to, but he’s lived so many years with one foot in this character, at the least, and he’s spent longer than he wants to admit in gradually-increasing degrees of love with the man beneath the character standing just a few feet, a few strides away. He falls to his knees and the flakes of dust are wrong, all wrong, and Chris is transported to the first time he saw cremated ashes, the way it wasn’t anything like he’d thought, and that it wouldn’t look like this if it were true and that should be enough. That should be enough to separate fact from fiction, reality from fantasy, Sebastian breathing versus Bucky vanishing into thin air. 

It doesn’t. Chris doesn’t have to see his face to know that it telegraphs everything. _Everything_.

Apparently, that makes for a really good shot. 

Chris’ chest hurts, and that’s not a new sensation for him, for how the world hits him sometimes, but like this?

Like this, he thinks he might actually fucking die. Truly. Irreversibly.

 _Fuck_.

But they _have_ refined it to an art by the point where Chris can admit it: if there’s one thing he hates, it’s acting opposite his lover.

And yes, Chris isn’t a fucking idiot, he sees the irony. He’d never have Sebastian if it wasn’t for everything that led to this, to here. Without acting alongside the man who defines the fullness of his life, he’d never _have_ that fullness to begin with.

Chris suspects this is the definition of a curse outweighed by its blessing, but still.

Yet where he has, yes, very much _always_ been prone to the character bleed, it’s only gotten worse over the years. And it seems to have faded when it’s not Sebastian being wrenched from him on screen with the echoes following Chris off-set and making him feel small and shaky and faint. And in the moment, in the scene, with _Sebastian_? Well, fuck all. Chris can’t even swallow around the way his heart pounds for every take. Pavlovian, at this point. Knowing that loss is coming as a ruse, like it’s funny.

It’s not.

But by now he’s off to his trailer, to try and remember how to breathe so that air actually enters his lungs and helps his heart pump without the sharp pain it’s causing right now, and he’s mouthing without any sound as he stumbles forward, _It’s not real, wasn’t him, won’t be him, he’s fine, we’re fine, he’s _fine_ , it’s not _real__ :

“You’re right,” Sebastian answers as soon as Chris open the door, letting it slam behind him carelessly as Sebastian stands, opens arms for Chris to fall into, eases him not to the sofa but all the way down to the floor. “Not real at all, babe.”

And Chris is desperate to touch, to map him, to catch his pulse between his teeth everywhere he’s able, like each beat he tastes can beat _back_ the lies they played out and make of them a bigger, better truth. Stronger. 

“Deep breaths, now,” Sebastian coaxes, rubbing Chris’ back rhythmically, and Chris remembers, yes. Breathing.

That’s important.

He bows his head just under Seb’s chin and breathes against his heartbeat at the collarbone and thinks _real, real, real_ , slower and slower until the oxygen starts to bring him back to himself.

“Any better?” Sebastian asks, and it’s perfect because he asks it like that: _any_ better, not better like it’s fixed, or ever will be, but asking if there’s any greater light in the darkness, now, because he gets it. 

So Chris presses a kiss to the underside of Seb’s jaw and nods into the crook of his neck and whispers:

“Can you just, stay here for a little while?”

And Sebastian stops stroking up and down his back to simply press his body close, murmuring into the shell of Chris’ ear:

“I had every intention to.”

And Chris? Chris loves things easily, freely, almost casually. But to fall _in_ love: that’s not his style, really. He doesn’t do that lightly. Maybe he never even has.

And maybe that’s why the moment feels like the world’s born anew, and his heart trips around, near-on to the point of concern for endless moment, because, oh.

Maybe it’s learning how little it belongs to _him_ , anymore.

Maybe it’s understanding that this body, these arms, this care, this _knowing_?

That’s probably what _love_ looks like.

And he’s breathless all over again, for wholly different reasons, and he clings back all the tighter.

___________________________

Chris is in their--their? Probably. Probably it’s _theirs_ by now, and now Chris wondering how long, exactly, that’s been true. 

_Theirs_. 

Because Chris definitely considers his place in Massachusetts to be Sebastian’s as much as his own. And Chris _has_ been living here in New York since his theatre run started, but Seb would have let him do that anyway, before. Before they’d ended up with their hearts in their mouths like that’s where the damned things belonged, and maybe they did, maybe they do. Chris, coming apart, missing the bed as he’d crumbled and apparently in his mumbling and trembling over fuck knows what, he doesn’t even remember exactly what had driven him that far, pushed him that low down into the depths of his own anxious mind. But apparently in Sebastian’s arms he’d felt free enough, or safe enough in the settling that he’d transcended fear somewhere beyond his own consciousness, and the truth he’d been holding so close to his chest had spilled out. 

Because Sebastian is stroking open palms up his limbs, down his back, over his shoulders with endless warmth, a million languages on his tongue but one of them is made of words Chris knows as he comes back to himself, but isn’t sure how to believe: 

“I love you, I love you, I love you, too--“

“You love me?” And the time for composure or embarrassment is long gone, because Chris is still broke open. Chris can’t help but be made of shivering hope. 

“Of course I do,” Sebastian tells him, framing Chris’ face. He relays it like a fact of matter or the laws of gravity: essential. “I love you _too_ , Chris. You said it first,” Sebastian holds his gaze with purpose, and meaning.

“ _You_ were the brave one.”

And Sebastian traces Chris’ cheekbones, his lips, his jaw with so much tenderness Chris thinks it’s _that_ that might break him, but it’s probably the fact that Sebastian knows, understands what it would mean to Chris to know that, even in the most of the breakdown, he’d let his heart lead. 

Sebastian knows. Sebastian _loves him too_. 

Maybe that was when all that was his became all that was _theirs_. 

Which is how Chris is in their New York apartment after some of the only interviews he’s given recently, not _just_ because of proximity and being in the play, but he’s alone, in their New York apartment when the first reactions come from the public, the press, that _scene_. And Chris had been ready for it, awaiting it with bated breath and the knowledge that he was going to crumble a little with remembering, but more than that, remembering what the first time around had made so clear to him. Reliving it in his head, sure, better than in the flesh except this time it’s with his _heart_ full with hurting and needing and feeling, and that’ll be the worst of it, the real victim. 

Chris closes his laptop and decides to shower, because at least there if he trembles, there’s no evidence when the steam hides his body. At least there, wetness is on his cheeks as a rule. 

___________________________

His skin’s not even wrinkled yet for standing under the spray too long when the hinges of the door creak loud enough to overcome the whir of the fan, the water and its torrent.

Chris might be concerned, but he knows the footsteps, hell: he knows the _breathing_.

So he’s not particularly bothered when the shower door slides open, leaves a cool draft send a shiver up his spine before the shivering shifts for the familiar body pressed hips to neck against him from behind as a low voice breathes at his ear:

“Guess who?”

Chris would try to maintain some nonchalance, maybe, if his immediate reaction to the naked flesh against him, and the man it belongs to, isn’t irrevocably and unapologetically to just lean in and _feel_.

And given what he was feeling when he got into the shower? He might take it a little further than normal, even. Might give more of his weight into Sebastian’s ready arms, might stay quiet for a second while they both inhale and exhale in countertime. Chris may soak him in a little deeper before he plays along, because he needs to, and Sebastian?

Sebastian never falters, never wavers. Sebastian’s a goddamn fucking rock, and Chris doesn’t know how he deserves it, but he would kill and die to keep it without a second thought.

“Hmm,” Chris breathes out when he gets his bearings, and feels sure-footed again. When the water from the shower isn’t hiding anything anymore, and his shaking is solely in response to Sebastian’s roaming hands along his sides. “Well, I’m in the shower, and I locked up before I jumped in, and there’s only one person who has the key who I’d also be totally cool with being in here with me, so…”

He turns in Sebastian’s arms, and lets his bare chest rise into Sebastian’s like his lungs were meant to bring him closer, were made for nothing else in the world. 

“Holy _fuck_ ,” Chris says, tries to widen his eyes without pure mirth in them though he knows that he fails. “You’re not Pratt.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes as Chris giggles, and reaches in an instant to cups Chirs’ ass and squeeze. _Hard_.

As if that’s any kind of _punishment_.

“And here I was thinking I’d get a homecoming present and then would have kindly returned the favor,” Sebastian laments dramatically as he reaches for the shampoo, but Chris takes advantage of the stretch of his body to take him, press him hard against the tile and press their lengths together just a sure and speak just below the pout of his lips as they curl:

“Here you were, thinking _right_.”  
___________________________

Sebastian’s wrapped in too much towel, though Chris shouldn’t be complaining. He’s still a little shaky, a little at sea with his legs after pushing the limits of just how many times a shower can wash away things that are far better than anxious tears.

“I feel like it was a whole new level of trolling to stick me on the press junket, what with all four lines I had to deliver in the whole fucking film,” Sebastian says as he reaches for a hoodie from the closet.

“You love it,” Chris calls him out, his own towel dropped to the floor as he rummages for a pair of boxer-briefs, and he gets absolutely no resistance to the quip as Sebastian just shrugs in agreement.

Chris _also_ maybe gets a snap of a towel in his direction that just misses his hips, and he yelps in a very unbecoming way that coaxes out the beautiful gift that is Sebastian’s giddy, mischievous, unrestrained laughter.

Plus, Sebastian now has just the right amount of _no_ towel wrapping around him, and that suits Chris just fine.

“Okay,” Sebastian admit between dwindling cackles; “kind of.”

“The trolling _and_ the tours,” Chris points out as he pulls on a pair of sweats to Sebastian’s track pants. “You’re the darling of the whole goddamn franchise these days.”

This time, he gets a snort.

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Sebastian deadpans, but Chris turns at him, just in time to catch the swath of his abs before a shirt covers them.

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are,” Sebastian says, eyes wide. “Which is why I’m really glad I’m home so I can take care of you through whatever ailment is messing with your sense of reality.”

Chris throws a rolled up pair of socks at Seb’s head, which earns him an indignant squawk before Sebastian leaves the room while Chris rummages for another pair--annoying, maybe.

But worth it.

Seb’s in the kitchen getting tea out of the cabinet when Chris comes in, feet now properly socked. The kettles hissing just the tiniest bit as it heats, and the fact that Sebastian even went for the tea in the first place speaks to two things: one, he plans on staying in the rest of the day, for which Chris is inordinately jubilant, and two, that he’s already racked up at _least_ 300 of those bouncing stars on his Starbucks app since 6am today.

Chris comes up behind him, wrapping arms around his waist and kissing at his nape, and Sebastian just hums into the contact appreciatively before he reaches up and gans one of Chris’ hands where it’s massaging his shoulder blades.

“What do you need?” Sebastian asks softly, the mood shifting dramatically from the shower, from the bedroom. And the words aren’t a demand or anything close to a burden, and Chris will never stop being amazed at that in itself. But no: Sebastian asks as he drags Chris’ hand to his mouth and kisses his knuckles, never turning but bringing Chris’ palm to his chest the way Sebastian knows steadies him.

Chris should have known Sebastian knew him too well, and hell, probably even read the emotions off of him in the shower as soon as Chris leaned into him too longer. Maybe before.

Honestly? Chris _did_ know. Does know.

He can’t hide from Sebastian anymore, and fuck if he ever wants to again, not deep down. Not in his heart of hearts, or the center of his soul.

Sebastian pours two cups while Chris stays pressed to his spine before he gently guides them, even with full hands, to the living room.

“It’s just,” Chris sighs, leaning back into the cushion of the sofa as he folds hands around the warm mug. “People are talking about it now.”

And that’s saying it lightly, of course. They’re breaking every record and setting every bar. They’re everywhere in a way even _they’ve_ never been before, and Chris just stares at the swirling milk in his cup like it’ll form a shape that makes sense, that reverses the gaining ache, the return of the tension in his chest.

But then there’s a hand on his knee, and that does the trick all the quicker, all the _better_.

“I know.” So simple. Sebastian just _knows_.

“I didn’t mean to look,” Chris goes on, not sure why, or where the words even come from exactly. “it was just, mindless, and I didn’t even bother to see how it got on _my_ feed, but...”

“I get it.” Sebastian’s hand doesn’t leave his thigh, just rubs steady and sure there like he’ll never get tired of it. “It’s not your fault.”

And something in Chris founders at that, because that’s exactly what he’d been telling himself, what he’d been caught up in the spiral of: guilt. He’d clicked on the links and read about the heartbreak of a moment he’s never had the stomach, the heart, the _soul_ to watch. He’d lacked the self control or the self awareness. He _deserved_ what he got and whatever he lost along with it for how fucking _weak_ he is sometimes, and--

“Come here.”

Sebastian’s hand leaves Chris’ thigh but only to take the untasted tea from his grasp and set it on the table. Only to stretch out and pull Chris down on top of him, wrapping arms around him as Chris’ breath catches and be buries himself in Sebastian’s chest. 

“Think of it this way,” Sebastian murmurs, and Chris gets a little lost in the rumble of it against his ear as Sebastian’s fingertips card through his hair. “No possible way in hell this would fly on set. I have a reputation.” He pulls one of Chris’ hands up to his own short-trimmed hair, so different from his character’s, and oh, but fuck yeah Sebastian had a reputation to uphold when it came to those silky locks. 

And Chris loves Sebastian, unutterably and unwaveringly, but he won’t pretend he doesn’t miss a _little_ more of his hair to grasp at, to pull. 

“I documented every beauty question I got asked for the sole purpose of your amusement, so,” he adds, threading their fingers together as he lowers their grasp. “You’re welcome.”

Chris smirks, just a little, and huffs just enough to prompt Sebastian to press a grinning kiss to his brow, and hold him just a little tighter.

“And if that doesn’t help set things apart, draw the lines between there and then and here and now,” Sebastian adds, before reaching out of nowhere, stealth as fuck about it, to tug unrepentantly at Chris’ mustache. 

“ _This_ would be escorted off set before you got within a hundred-yard radius, so.”

Chris turns his head a little so he can pout up at Sebastian with the full force of his lips.

“You’re a dick.”

Sebastian just grins broader.

“Sometimes,” he says. “Truth hurts, after all.”

And Chris bats at Sebastian’s chest ineffectively before settling back down upon it, and hell, but they were made for each other, Chris thinks. Carved by the universe or paired by a god somewhere, somehow. Chris’ chest is still heavy and his heart is still beating too fast, but even so: this is the most right thing in all the world.

“You _do_ remember filming the rest of the script though, yeah?” Sebastian says his own hands finding home on Chris’ chest in kind. “The next movie? None of this shit’s forever, anyway.”

“Sure, I remember,” Chris says, rueful and self-loathing. “I also remember these are fucking fictional characters with superpowers that aren’t even real, but it doesn’t fucking change the fact that--”

“Shh,” Sebastian breathes against the top of his head, breath ruffling his hair. “I _know_.” 

He reaches down and turns Chris over so their chest to chest as he cups Chris’ cheeks.

“And it’s _okay_ ,” Sebastian says with his whole heart in his eyes. “You don’t have to explain this. You don’t have to explain _anything_ ,” Sebastian strokes even thumbprint across Chris’ lower lip and watches him like he’s precious and irreplacable. Like he means _everything_

“You never have to justify what you feel, not to me.”

And Chris breathes out, so very very slow, before he drops his head beneath Sebastian’s chins and grates out:

“I hate this.”

“I know,” Sebastian murmurs, playing with his hair idly. “But it’s _you_ , baby,” and Sebastian lifts Chris’ chin then and kisses him, quick but full. 

“And I’m not really okay with anyone hating _anything_ about _my_ boyfriend, who is the best man I’ve ever known, so.” He speaks with unwavering conviction that makes the tightness in Chris’ chest not lessen, exactly, but thum and sing somehow, too.

“I haven’t even see the movie, y’know?” Chris says, still self-deprecating as he settles back into Sebastian warmth. “I never even saw it _happen_ , I just--”

“Look at me.”

Chris doesn’t need Sebastian’s coaxing, this time, to lift his head and do what is asked of him, because denying Sebastian is like failing to breathe.

“Caring too much is not a weakness, Chris Putting that much of yourself on the line is a fucking _gift_.”

And Chris’ throat starts to close a little as be burrows into the familiar thump of Sebastian’s heart and loses himself there. Hears the words that come later through the cadence of the beat.

“You know, people,” Sebastian says slowly, his voice a pleasant rumble against Chris’ eat. “And I mean a lot of people, they think these characters, their story, the fact that they survived all this shit and made it back and whatever,” Sebastian pauses, and it’s only in pausing that Chri realizes Sebastian’d been stroking his hair, and he whimpers a little until it starts again.

“It’s the great modern American love story, to them.”

Chris huffs. “So I’ve heard.” And of course he has. Of course, because so much of his own love story is wrapped up in _that_ story, whatever the love there is or isn’t, but he knows what his love is, what his heart needs, and so when one suffers he can’t help the edge of fear and the sting of loss and the need, god.

The _need_.

“But that’s fucked up, isn’t it?” Seb continues. “Think about it. Two guys surviving fates worse than death, crossing paths, almost killing each other, missing every opportunity, never saying _anything_ about _love_ , if that’s even in the cards,” Sebastian shakes his head a little, his lips brushing Chris’ scalp in the process. 

“And in the end, losing each other, over and over, every fucking time.”

And Chris’ heart spasms for the words said aloud, because it’s not right. It’s not right because their story isn’t on film, his and Sebastian’s, Chris understands that, but it’s still not _right_.

“I mean, I guess,” Sebastian weighs his words slowly; “is that what people call love, now, how they measure it? By how much heartbreak you can stand?” He tangles his fingers properly in Chris’ hair, now, before he whispers:

“Is that what it means?”

“No.”

The words out before Chris thinks twice, because he’s sure of it. He looks up and meets Sebastian’s eyes with more conviction, more indignation almost, but more just fucking _feeling_ than he’s anticipated, but it’s there. And it’s strong. 

“No,” Chris shakes his head, and balances himself with palms on Sebastian’s chest, close tot the center and hard enough to feel a rhythm beneath, and it’s no accident at all. 

“No, because love isn’t,” Chris swallows, tries to get his bearings. “I mean…”

He closes his eyes until his pulse matches the one beneath his hands, and that.

It’s _that_. 

“Love isn’t something you know despite all that shit,” Chris finally speaks, and watches Seb’s eyes through every word. “Love is what gets you _through_ that shit. Any shit. All of the stuff life throws at you, love is what keeps you going through it, onto whatever shit is coming next. Love is what fills the in-between with something beautiful enough that the rest is something you can survive in the first place. It keeps,” he draws in a sharp breath.

“It keeps your heart safe, when the world tries to break it,” Chris says, eyes trailing to his hands on Sebastian’s chest automatically, because it’s true, it’s so goddamn _true_.

“Or at least, it holds it together so it can still, so that you can,” Chris licks his lips, and then locks his eyes with Sebastian’s for what he has to say next, so that nothing is lost or misconstrued, so that nothing is read into wrong. 

“It heals you and makes you stronger for the breaking,” Chris exhales, biting his lower lip.

“Love is,” he reaches, and strokes the line of Sebastian’s jaw. “Love is in how you live. Not how it ends.”

And Chris doesn’t know anything in that moment, aside from the fact that the fire in him at Sebastian’s words is banked, now. That every word he said in reply was more than true. And that Sebastian’s heartbeat beneath his hand is the only touchstone he thinks he’ll ever be able to know again.

So it takes a moment for Chris to notice the small, knowing smile on Sebastian’s lips before Sebastian gathers both of Chris’ hands and kisses their palms.

“See?”

And oh. _Oh_ , Chris sees it now. He gets it. Start to finish, Sebastian had brought it up as a distraction, a question and an edge that was sure to bend Chris toward indignation so that he’d would rise and catch the flame of it, all while leading him to the only result that mattered, that was true, and that he’d only have half a chance in hell of believing in his bones if _he_ was the one who reached it, who found it, even if Sebastian is the one with hands on his face and eyes so bright they could blind, they could save as he breathes out:

“ _That’s_ real.”

Chris sees it, and his heart sounds pumping heavy and swift because of something sweeter, just now, and oh. _Oh_ , but Sebastian knows him. Sebastian sees him. 

Sebastian stays and _holds_.

“I love you,” Chris breathes into the curve of Sebastian’s jaw. “I love you so goddamn much.”

And Seb shudders, his neck tipping back just a little for it as he exhales: “Chris.”

“I don’t say it, I know,” Chris confesses, heavy in his gut and it’s the characters and the movie and the plot and the loss, but then it’s not, it’s not at all because Chris is so in love it’s become the color of the whole goddamn world, and he should name it. Every day.

Every moment of every single fucking _day_.

“You don’t have to,” Sebastian says, and it’s not small or shy. It’s just honest.

Chris doesn’t know what to do with it, exactly, save to kiss Sebastian as deep as he possibly can.

“I feel it,” Chris mouths, breathes between Sebastian’s lips. “More than anything else I feel, or have ever felt, it’s _that_ , it’s _you_ , and I--”

“Chris.” Sebastian leans so that he can kiss Chris fully, with no space for breath or doubt, just them before he pulls back, only enough to speak:

“Chris, you’re right.”

And Chris stares at him, uncomprehending but safe, sure, almost fucking _content_ , good _god_ , so the way Sebastian’s hands bracket his body, hold him steady from any harm or question, and shivering doubt.

“It’s in how you live,” Sebastian says softly, but like he knows it to be true. “How _we_ live.”

And Chris is going to cry, going to sob, going to fall apart at the seams for the whole day, for this moment, for a life they’ve led thus far and everything that could ever promise, that Chris could ever _hope_ is yet to come, and so he asks, downright begs: 

“Hold me.”

But he didn’t need to, because Sebastian _knows_ him, and his arms are already snaking around Chris’ body, and Chris knows it’s okay to let go and yeah.

Yeah.

 _This_ is real.


End file.
